"It's at the door, Mr. Rouncivell," said Selina, putting her head into the room.
Uncle Matthew was so voluminously wrapped up for this expedition that it seemed at first as if he would never be able to squeeze through the door of the brougham; but by unwinding himself from a plaid shawl he managed it.
"Where am I to drive to?" asked Uncle Eneas' gardener in an injured voice. He evidently disapproved of being lent to other people.
"Drive to London," said the old gentleman.
"To London, you idiot! Don't you know where London is?"
"London's a large place," said the coachman.
"I don't need you to tell me that. Drive to Regent Street."
The drive was spent in trying to accommodate Uncle Matthew's wraps to the temperature of the inside of the brougham, and in an attempt to calculate how much it cost Eneas to keep a horse, carriage, and coachman. This was a complicated calculation, because it involved deducting from the cost per week not merely the amount saved in artificial manures, but also the amount saved by growing bigger vegetables than would otherwise have been grown.
"But whatever way you look at it," said Uncle Matthew finally, "it's a dead loss!"
When they reached Regent Street, Uncle Matthew told Jasmine to stop the carriage at the first shop where women's clothes were sold.
"Yes, women's clothes. I'm told you want a gown for a ball to-morrow. Well, I'm going to buy you one."
Jasmine could scarcely believe that it was Uncle Matthew who was talking, and her expression of amazement roused the old gentleman to ask her what she was staring at.
"Think I've never bought gowns for women before?" he asked. "I used to come shopping every day with my poor wife, fifty years ago."
The brougham had stopped at a famous and fashionable dressmaker's, and Jasmine wonderingly followed the old gentleman into the shop.
"I want a gown," said the old gentleman fiercely to the first lady who wriggled up to him and asked what he required.
They were accommodated with chairs in the showroom, and presently a young woman emerged from a glass grated door and walked past them in an Anglo-Saxon attitude.
"You needn't be shy of me," said Uncle Matthew. "I'm old enough to be your grandfather." The show-woman tittered politely at what she supposed was Uncle Matthew's joke.